Club Shay Shay - Dana White Part 1

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

UFC President Dana White joins Shannon Sharpe at Club Shay Shay for a comprehensive and entertaining conversation that spans the history and future of mixed martial arts, personal anecdotes, and behind-the-scenes stories. Shannon kicks things off by reminiscing about his experience attending UFC 1. He then dives into his recent participation in "The Roast of Tom Brady," sharing what it was like to perform in front of 12,000 people, his unique relationship with Tom Brady, and the process of crafting his jokes, including calling comedian Bill Burr for advice. Dana gives credit to Drew Bledsoe and Shannon takes a light-hearted jab at Kim Kardashian, to which Dana offers his own praise. He concludes with high praise for Tom Brady, calling him a savage. Dana then dives into his upbringing with a single mom who worked as a nurse, growing up in a lower-middle-class environment, and moving from Boston in the fifth grade with a thick accent. He shares his lifelong love for fighting, dropping out of college after less than a semester, and the reasons why college didn't suit him. Dana recounts being run out of Boston due to FBI investigations involving Whitey Bulger, fleeing to Las Vegas, and how that move turned out to be fortuitous. Upon arriving in Vegas, Dana became Tito Ortiz's manager despite his lack of qualifications, which he candidly discusses with Shannon. He explains what he saw in the UFC, then on the brink of bankruptcy, as a golden opportunity and purchased the company with the Fertitta Brothers. Dana believed in the universal appeal of fighting and worked tirelessly to turn the company around. He discusses the challenge of getting people to understand Jiu Jitsu and credits Joe Rogan for his pivotal role in popularizing the sport. The conversation also covers the UFC's groundbreaking move to Spike TV, financing the first season independently, and the emphasis on live event experiences over TV broadcasts. Dana explains how he convinced Joe Rogan to become a commentator after seeing him on the Keenen Ivory Wayans show and an interview where Joe expressed his passion for fighting. Dana then talks about his roster of fighters, particularly Conor McGregor, noting how money changed McGregor in ways it never did Tom Brady, and praising Conor's charismatic "gift of gab." He wraps up by discussing UFC 303, the upcoming fight at the Vegas Sphere, the challenges posed by MGM, the event's homage to Mexican Independence Day, and how it's designed to be more than just a fight—an unforgettable event. Join Shannon Sharpe and Dana White for this first half of an episode packed with riveting stories, valuable insights, and the kind of in-depth discussion that makes "Club Shay Shay" a must-listen for sports fans and fight enthusiasts alike. #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hell nah! It'll eventually happen. Who the hell wanted it? Shannon, I'm going to have you pretty soon. Oh, no! Hell no! Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Shea Shea. the rolling dice. That's why all my life I've been grinding all my life. Hello, welcome to another episode of Club Shea Shea. I am your host, Shannon Sharp. I'm also the proprietor of Club Shea Shea. The guy that's stopping by for conversation and a drink today, he allowed me into his domain. He's one of the most successful business people in the world.

He's a highly influential sports figure in the sporting industry. He revolution revolutionized the sports of mixed martial arts. One of the greatest fight promoters of all time. He's the CEO of the UFC, the world's biggest MMA organization. He's a powerhouse, a global phenomenon, a marketing genius, a mule,

a mogul, a Maverick, a head honcho. Some call him a savage, the lead legend. One of the most influential people in sports, Dana White. I'm glad I showed up.

Just the intro alone. Thank you, sir. Hey, bro, what you had to do to get here. We were supposed to sit down yesterday, but you had a conflict. You had to go. Your son's graduating. My son's graduating, you know, big shit show down in USD in San Diego. I had to fly there, help my wife with some stuff.

Planes landed to get me today. Hits a bird, blows the engine out. Can't get me another bird. I'm like, the universe did not want us to do this podcast. The universe. Here we are. But you're here. And, bro, all your success growing the UFC, and we're going to get into the UFC, what it was.

I was at the very first UFC fight in Old McNichols Arena before it was the Pepsi Center. You were at UFC 1? Ken Shamrock lost to Gracie. Back then, they had no weight classes. You fought, you win, you advance, and you keep fighting, you keep fighting. And so what you've been able to grow it to, I don't thank anybody for salt this, but what you've been able to do, I want to toast you, bro. You know, I have my own cognac.

It's shaped by La Portia. Boy, do I need a cognac, let me tell you. Afternoon. Afternoon. Oh, that's pretty smooth. We got yours right here. What's pretty smooth? You have Howler head yeah

which is a uh a bourbon it's a bourbon yeah it's a flavored bourbon and uh i started it during the pandemic yeah it's fun it's fun being in the look of it i started in the pandemic also we kind of started a little before but the kind of you know we're going to release it then the pandemic happened so it got pushed back but you're you're you're in this business and you understand the three-tier system so it's just not like okay i want to sell you this day and you got to go through distributors and then they go to grind absolutely all time it is job it is being in the liquor business it is it is fun it is so let's get right into it the roast with tom brady yeah first of all could you do could you let someone roast you after doing the roast no now that i've done it i would never let me tell you this for the people

that don't understand the roast of tom brady right there were 12 000 people there live right 12 000 people live right then you have you know the deus all the guys that are on the deus plus some of the baddest comedians in the world were there you had chapelle was there yeah uh chelsea handler was there guy from england i gotta remember this guy's name but he's he's huge and jeff ross and high and cliff but they're all there everybody was there well then the people that you saw on the on the deus too right now you have to get up and tell jokes public speaking is whatever a lot of people have fear of public speaking i public speak all the time telling jokes is a whole nother ball yes then when you're up cameras come running up and

they're right in your face 12 000 people everybody's staring at you and now you got to tell jokes right you know and if you fuck up one word if you stutter if you if you go into a downward death spiral that you could never pull yourself out of i'm telling you it's the most underrated thing in the world being a comedian right and getting up and telling jokes right i will never ever ever because i think the thing is you and i I'm a little older than you Dane I think I'm a little older than you but I remember the roast with Dean Martin yeah in order to do a roast effectively you gotta have some people like oh he actually said that well it's another level yeah the roast with Dean Martin were funny and fun and whatever it's it's it's kill it's for

the kill yeah it's like it's a whole no i love them i love roast i'm a fan of roast um just not getting roasted or i would i don't mind getting roasted going up and roasting someone else and telling jokes is it's not as easy as everybody thinks it is so hard to do so when you found out this like hey dana we're gonna roast tom and we want you to be a participant. What was the first thing? Because I know the relationship that you have with Tom. And then what was going through your mind when you was like, oh, man. Well, there are a couple of things. When he first asked me, I hung up the phone and called him.

I said, they must have paid you an ungodly amount of money to do this. Right. He said they really didn't. I'm just a fan of roasts and i want to do it i said okay uh uh you know so he obviously gave my name to be whatever i said i'm in i'll do it which i said i would never do again because i i do a show called looking for a fight right when we put ourselves in uncomfortable situations we did stand-up comedy one night at a comedy club okay it is the hardest it is most brutal worst thing that i've ever done in my life and i said i'd never do it again i will really never do it again after this roast but i did i did it for tom so then what happens is the producers start calling you and they got people that are writing jokes now understand this they're writing Jokes for Brady, Gronk, Edelman. Coach Belichick.

Belichick. Mr. Kraft. Kraft, Kardashian. His ex. Yeah, no. For Bledsoe. Bledsoe, yeah. The list goes on and on, right?

I'm 60 seconds. Right. So I'm getting the piece of shit. Joke problems that fell on the fucking floor. Right. So I'm getting the piece of shit. Joke that fell on the floor. You know what I mean? They're giving me all these jokes that are like UFC based that, you know, I would have never. And you're like, I want some meat.

Leave me some meat on that bone. It would have been brutal. So I called in a favor. I called Bill Burr. Me and Bill Burr are friends. Me and Bill Burr are aligned in the way that we think. So Bill Burr helped me with some of my jokes.

And yeah, thank God. Or I'd have been a sitting duck out there. But that's the way that it works. And yeah, let me tell you, it's not as fun as you... People are like, oh, you must have had a blast. Had a blast. Bledsoe. I give Bledsoe all the credit in the blast. Had a blast. Bledsoe.

I give Bledsoe all the credit in the world. You could tell when Bledsoe first went up there, he was nervous. He was first. You got to go first, right? And he killed it. He pulled himself together. He got through it. He did a great job, in my opinion.

Even Kim Kardashian. And I don't know what's true and what's not true. What is true is they booed the shit out of her. Really? Oh, they booed the shit out of her when she went up there. I mean, you hear, but I don't know what's true and what's not true. What is true is they booed the shit out of her. Really? Oh, they booed the shit out of her when she went up. I mean, you hear, but you don't. I mean, I hadn't talked to anybody that was actually there. And you hear the media reports that Kim Kardashian was booed.

But hearing you talk about it, they really booed. Oh, no, they booed her. And they booed her so bad that, like, Jeff Ross stood up and said, Come on. Come on, everybody. Stop. You got to understand. I mean, when you looked around the crowd, everybody was wearing football jerseys.

It's that crowd. It's not a Kardashian crowd. Well, she should have fit right in. Oh, my bad. My bad, Dana. Dana, I was in real trouble. I'm getting ready for a road. I'm getting ready for a road.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Kim. I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist. But what happened was I'm hearing that Netflix, first of all, Netflix gets all the credit for having the balls to do this.

Yes. And not only do it, but do it live. Because comedy had taken a hit with political correctness and all this stuff, and everybody was afraid to do a roast. These guys did a roast and did it live. I'm hearing that in the replays, they edited out the boos, which is crazy, because Kim Kardashian is not an actress. She does reality TV. That's's right i've done reality tv it's totally different than being an actor and acting you go

on and you do what you do you do what you're doing the cameras will follow you 100 now she got booed and she powered through it right she powered through it she did her set and whatever it takes a lot of balls to get up there and do that. And she did it. But, you know, when you step up and you do a roast, like my second joke that I told was, so I wake up that morning and I start thinking about what if I start to bomb, right? If I start to bomb, how could I attack the crowd? Right. Right? And whatever.

I call Bill Burr. And literally, I said to Bill, if I start the bomb, how could I attack the LA, California crowd that's there or whatever? He pauses for like two seconds and says, what? My name is Dana. Is that not trans enough for you, liberal? And I go, oh, i'm opening with that one i'm opening with that i'm not gonna right so so when i when i put the joke in right that that all the comedians were telling me don't do that joke don't do that joke you're not gonna get the

response you think i said oh no no i i literally want to come out and punch this dude right in the face you know what I mean? And that was how that happened. Could you get a sense? Because like I say, you know Tom. You've been around Tom in a private setting. Not, you know, the politically correct Tom. So you know him a lot better than most people.

Could you sense that he got a little uncomfortable with it? Or did he just like, he was Tom? He definitely wasn't uncomfortable. Okay. Tom Brady, you know, everybody talks about Brady, like, oh, you know, he's soft and he's a pretty, but he's a fucking beast, man. That guy's a savage. And, you know, again, when you're in positions like we are in, you don't worry about yourself. Right. You signed up for this shit. Right. You know what I know what i mean right in life you do what you do you say things every day you do

multiple podcasts you're on television you say things right that you know you're going to be attacked for your opinion or whatever it is it's just it's hard to see your family get kids you know what i mean exactly it's more about the kids right um and and you know there are a lot of great things that come with being our kids you know there's a lot of yes a lot of negative yeah and you got to take the good with the bad right not everything's gonna be perfect my kids see it all the time people say horrible shit people say things who gives a shit were you really upset that you only had 60 seconds? Did you really want three to five minutes? No, that was how I ended it.

I wanted six seconds, okay? You wanted one joke and get away. I wanted six seconds. I didn't want 60 seconds. And no, I was not upset. The thing is, too, is that even politically, like that joke, I'm not really that much of a political person. And I definitely do not attack people for their political views and this is america right you can believe whatever you want

it was a roast and it was a joke so so you was good so i was fucking thrilled that i had 60 seconds believe me so so with your like you get up there it's like man because if i mess up one word the joke's not gonna to come off as intended. And then people go like, it was a great night except Dana Blum. Then you got three more jokes. How do you recover from that when you're not a professional comedian? A professional comedian can recover from anything and do what they do. When you're a regular guy and you go on one of these things and you mess up a joke, you're on a downward spiral death that's going to seem, 60 seconds would have seemed like

6 hours. You know what I mean? It's brutal. The 82 game preseason is in the books and it's finally time for the real season. Don't miss out on any NBA playoff action at DraftKings Sportsbook, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. From the play-in tournament through the finals,

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You know, I... You get in trouble? Yeah, I got in a lot of trouble. Yeah, that's a good question. Yeah, I got in a lot of trouble when I was a kid. But, you know, when you look at your life and you look back on it, you know, there were certain things that weren't, you know, great about my upbringing, but I always had fun and I always thought that I was living a good life. I was always happy, always, uh, love where I was and who I was with and things like that.

I, I, I, I wouldn't change one thing about the way. How would you describe your family? Were you middle class, upper middle class, lower middle class, lower middle? Yeah. A single mom who was a nurse obviously made good money, but worked 24 hours a day to support us. And me and my sister were alone a lot. You know, we sort of kind of of raised each other 100 or raised ourselves however you want to look at it yeah did you fight a lot of the kid yeah got into a lot of fights especially here in in vegas vegas was uh vegas was there was a lot of fighting going on here in the 80s

like school versus school right like that so i mean being um in connecticut and massachusetts did you have that accent did you have that that Bostonian accent and people make fun of you? What was funny is because we moved here in like 1978 and I was in fifth grade. OK. Going into fifth grade. OK. And so they thought I had an accent here. Then after I was here for a while, then they thought I had an accent when I'd go back to Boston.

So I always had this messed up accent no matter where I was. So you got jumped. You fought, and then you got good at it. Did you get good at fighting, or you just like? Yeah, well, I liked it. I embraced it. Probably the way you like playing football is the way that I felt about fighting growing up. I loved everything about fighting.

Lots of different fighting. You know, I was a huge boxing fan. Right. I was a big Bruce Lee fan. You know, so I liked martial arts and I liked all kinds of fights. I liked street fights. I mean, at school, there would always be fights after school at the park. Right.

Everybody would be excited to go. Did you think you were going to be a fighter? Is that something like, well, you know, maybe i'll be a boxer maybe i'll be a martial artist i didn't really think that until uh i was probably 18 or 19 years old is when i started to think that that that fighting was something that i wanted to do for the rest of my life and not necessarily a fighter but in the fight business right I read where you got kicked out of school. Was it for fighting? I got kicked out of school multiple times.

I was kicked out of school multiple times. I barely graduated high school. And, yeah, between grades and fighting and lots of other things. You go to college, but you don't stay very long. You drop out. Why? Yeah, I went to college for less than than a semester I think it just wasn't for me right I went to school and and I was just like this is just it's not me unfortunately this

this isn't um my future my son is going to graduate college this weekend I'm literally flying back to San Diego tomorrow for his graduation weekend and and I'm so proud of him and happy for him. It just, it wasn't my path. It just wasn't for me. But when you look at it, you look at a lot of people, you dropped out of college, Oprah, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Kanye West, Jack Dorsey, Paul Allen. Why do you think a lot of successful people choose that path?

Because we, you know, we get go to college. You got to go to college. You got to get a degree. You got to get out of yada, yada. And so many people that are successful chose a different path. I think a lot of the people, I'm not saying everybody, I'm just in my experience with this, a lot of kids that go to college don't know who they are and what they want to be and do for the rest of their life. I was very fortunate. And I think these people were probably the same, knew exactly who we were and what we wanted at a very young age. I mean, there's still people that are 30 walking around trying to figure out who they are and what they want to do.

I knew, I knew. And then once you know, and you lock in and focus on it and go for it, it's hard not to be successful. Right. And maybe a college degree isn't a requirement for what you want to do in life or what you want to become in life. Yeah. And I think, you know, I read this book recently. Rick Rubin wrote a book and it's brilliant. It's so good. And it talks about how a lot of the people that become successful, it's like when you

go to college, you learn all the rules. They teach you all the rules of business and whatever it may be. Kids that didn't go to college don't know the rules. So they break all the rules and do things differently than the kids that went to college. A lot of times kids that don't go to college, they're willing to take risks that people that went to college, because like you say, you learn the rules. You're like, we don't do that. But if you didn't go, you don't know the rules,

so you break the rules. And I am an excessive risk taker. Excessive risk taker. I mean, I literally take risks to a whole nother level. I love risk. I love adversity. I love, it's like today. I mean, I don't care who you are, how much money you have, what you have going on.

When you get out of bed every day, life is standing right there to punch you in the mouth. And you have to overcome all these different struggles in life every day. I actually love when adversity is thrown at me and I have to deal with this stuff and and it's one of my favorite things to do so I'm a little sick and twisted and I like I like the conflict every day I like powering through the challenges that life throws at you every day it's like one of my favorite things to do is it true you got ran out of boston you could call it that yeah um did you owe somebody money no i didn't know anybody money but that's the way uh that's the if you if you've ever seen

the movie black mass or you hear the stories of whitey bulger yes who's one of the most notorious gangsters in american history was in cahoots with the fbi and you know that's that's where i lived and that shit was going on at that time and it was very real and so you're like okay i'll leave yeah well you know when you're staring down the barrel of of those type of people um you know i just booked a one way ticket back to vegas and so you did you understand why you was being run out of town? Were there something like you owe money? Were there something that because, you know, you have to pay a tax on goods or were you trying to run an operation? Did you infringe on someone's territory?

Yeah, I mean, I didn't owe anybody money. But, I mean, that was life in that city at that time. And it's crazy the way that life works out. Because I wouldn't have come back. I think I would have eventually come back to Vegas. That was always my plan. I wouldn't have done it then. And the timing wouldn't have been right for me and the Fertittas to connect at the wedding that we were at.

And the list goes on and on. And I'm sure you have a million of these stories yourself. The way that life works and all these paths you end up going down for whatever reason, that led you to sitting in this chair right now talking to me. Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast, NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news, previews, recaps,

and analysis delivered straight to your podcast feed by the time you get your coffee. No dumb hot takes here. Just smart hot takes. We'll talk every single game every single week, but I can't do it alone. So I'm bringing in the big guns from NFL media. That's Patrick Claiborne, Steve Weiss, Nick Shook, Jordan Rodrigue from The Athletic, and of course, Colleen Wolfe. This is their window right now. This is their Super Bowl window. Why would they trade him away? Because he would be a pivotal part of them winning that Super Bowl.

I don't know why, Colleen. Catch the podcast, the NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal every day. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. And who doesn't want that? Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you come to Vegas and you become a manager. You ain't got no experience in being no manager. You manage Tito Ortiz.

You manage Chuck Liddell. How? I barely graduated high school. So I didn't have any experience doing any of the shit yeah that's why I'm saying you barely graduated high school and you thought like you know what college is a good idea so I I came out here started doing what I was doing in Boston and in Boston how old were you when you came here? I was 25. Okay, you're 25. And then, it was actually, I was 24. It was my 25th birthday, like days after I moved back to Vegas. And I just got back into the boxing.

I knew what I wanted to do. I was going to be in the fight business. Started doing my thing out here. And then ended up meeting lots of different floyd mayweather i mean yeah me and floyd were together when he got off out of the olympics and we're doing stuff together started doing stuff with chuck and tito and john lewis who was our jiu-jitsu instructor at the time um and the list goes on and on and it all just started to build into uh where we are today because me and the fratitas started taking jiu-jitsu with with the only guy that was teaching jiu-jitsu in in las vegas at the time a guy named john lewis okay that's how we started to meet a

lot of these fighters and training with them and then chuck and Tito asked me to manage them. So I started managing them. And did they know you didn't have any experience in managing people? Well, I mean, I was probably, I think they just, I don't know what it was that, you know, ended up getting these people to all sign with me. But listen, I was the type of guy that got shit done. Right. So they knew that. Right.

They knew that. Being a manager, you understand both parts because now you're the CEO of the UFC and you're having to negotiate and deal with managers. So how was it for you being a manager in this for the very first time and you're trying to extract as much money from an organization as you possibly can all the while understanding that they have to run a business and at the end of the day business is business right and and being a manager is a very

fine line you walk okay because you want to get as much money for your guy as you can right without destroying the relationship with the absolutely you know what i mean so i uh that's how the whole sale went down so tito ortiz had had been screwed over by them and they were supposed to pay him money that they didn't pay him so i was trying to get tito a new deal and get the money that they was old from before okay so in that negotiation the owner at the time bob meyerowitz flips out on the phone and finally says there is no more fucking money i don't even know if i can put on another show and he snaps and freaks out on me so i'm like holy shit i hang up the phone and i literally picked it back up and called lorenzo for tita and I said I just got off the phone with Bob Meyerowitz I think the UFC is in

trouble I think they're going to go bankrupt and I think we should buy the company so I literally had that call with Lorenzo I gave him Bob Meyerowitz number he called Bob Meyerowitz and that's what started the conversations for us to buy the UFC so I mean in that negotiation is what led to us buying the UFC Danny you said something interesting just a few seconds ago you says as a manager your job is to try to get as much money as you possibly can without destroying the relationship and I tell people that I would rather take a little less than have somebody begrudgingly give me more and it ruins everything for down the road. You're absolutely right. And, you know, there's this, when you're a manager, right? So you're trying to get as much

as you can for your client. You're trying not to damage the relationship with the organization. Yet at the same time, you also realize if i'm managing you your life literally your life is in my hands correct right and i tell fighters this and other athletes all the time be careful who you get to represent you because that is exactly what they do because they are representing you right yes any way that this negotiation goes south, I'm still going to make a living. I got five or six other clients. But you, the one guy that I'm managing, if I burn that bridge and destroy that relationship, I burned your bridge. Correct. Not my bridge. Your bridge. Wow. You say you picked up the phone. You call the Fertitta. and how did you, before you

say, how did you guys become friends? How did you know the Fertitta? So Lorenzo and I went to school together in Las Vegas. Okay, okay. We were in the same class. It's not like me and Lorenzo were best friends growing up in high school. We knew each other. Right.

He came from money. I did not. Right. But the Fertittas were always really good, solid human beings. Okay. You will never meet more well-adjusted, kind, giving humans than the Fertitta family. Okay. They're one of the greatest families on planet Earth.

And they've done a lot of things for a lot of people, and they've made a lot of people wealthy. Right. So you pick up the phone, you call him, says, man, check this out. I think the UFC might be in trouble. I think they might be going belly up. I think we'd be able to get them for a good price. And I think this is something we can really, really. Did you know you could turn it into what it eventually became?

Listen, we all believed, you know, me, Frank and Lorenzo believed. There were three guys that truly believed in this business. And it was us. And yes, I mean, I was believed, you know, me, Frank and Lorenzo believed. There were three guys that truly believed in this business and it was us. And yes, I mean, I was just telling you when we started talking that every day after school, there would be a fight at the park and the whole school would show up for the fight. Right. After school. And I had this philosophy that no matter what color you are, what country you come from, or what language you speak, we're all human beings. Right.

And fighting is in our DNA. We get it and we like it. It's universal. It's like music. It doesn't need to be explained. So many times we'd be in Europe and I'd be laying in bed flipping through uh channels and cricket would come on okay i have no idea what's going on right i don't know i'm never gonna know and i don't care enough to know about cricket okay now i could be in another country and a fight could come on and

the commentator could be talking about i don't need to know what he's saying i don't care this is a fight i understand it i get it and i like it and i'm gonna watch it in any language right it just it works everywhere when you find somebody um i'll give you an example conor mcgregor who's from ireland right he ignites an entire country and and sometimes you know all of europe when you have somebody that's a big star like him right or a manny pacquiao yes where um everybody who looks like him talks like him and comes from where he comes from will get behind him and follow him brazil whatever it is and when you have multiple um champions or or great fighters from these different places around the world. It just works, man. It works.

And that I always believed in. The $2 million, did you think the $2 million price for something that was about to go belly up, did you think you were paying too much or you felt you got a good deal? Because you had the UFC, you had all the branding, you had everything already in place. You weren't going to have to put that up in hindsight yes it was an it was an amazing deal but when you really think about what we bought we bought those three letters and an old wooden octagon yep and realistically even those three letters hadn't been protect protected the way that they should have been right he had sold off the video game rights,

all the VHS and home video rights, which at the time was big. We only had, I want to say we had 12 or 13 contracts with guys at the time. So there was a lot of work that needed to be done. It's easy to look back now and say, oh, man, they got the UFC for $2 million. People don't really understand or know what it really took and all the work that had to go into turning this thing around. But you had to invest $40 million in debt on the top of the $2 million that you had spent in order to.

And obviously, we know what it's worth now. But like you said, you only had X amount of fighters under contract. that you had spent in order to and obviously you we know what it's worth now but we're as like you said you only had x amount of fighters under contract so and i'm reading that you're like okay you put all your own money up on spike tv to right so at the time you know we're 40 million in debt and the only way we thought we could turn this around was getting it on free TV. And you have to understand, when we bought this, it wasn't allowed on pay-per-view. Right. Porn was on pay-per-view.

You could buy porn. You were not allowed to buy the UFC. Wow. So our goal was to get it on free television. People thought we were insane and it would never happen. But at the time, reality TV was taken off. Yes. And it was sort of what we felt was our Trojan horse.

You're watching UFC, but the fights were taped. What the network was really afraid of was live fights and that something crazy would go wrong and whatever. Well, these fights were taped. You could edit it accordingly. Exactly. it was the perfect end for us so but wasn't congress trying to pass laws to get it banned or outlawed or something yeah they got you were up against that also if i if i if my memory serves me correct so

what happened with the original ufc was they ran from regulation they tried to go to places you know where regulation they thought couldn't touch them. And then Senator John McCain came in and put the stamp on them. And, you know, all their marketing that they did at that time hurt them. We did the exact opposite. We ran toward regulation. Lorenzo Fertitta was a very respected regulator at the time. So, yeah, our goal was to make this a real sport this many people want to watch a freak show this many people want to watch a real sport with real athletes so he believed that it could

be this someday but you never really our big thing was the jujitsu yes how are you going to educate people about the jujitsu because you know again you and i are are are close to the same age we came from you know the old john wayne movies where you'd hit a guy yeah and you go over and you'd stand back up and hit him again you jump on top of the guy and start beating the shit out of him you know that wasn't and and boxing and and everything how do you teach people the ground game right well first of all one of one of the the key components to that was joe rogan right who is the greatest you know the ufc play-by-play fight guy ever um he's a guy who's really educated on the sport has actually done it loves and respects the sport and the athletes and joe rogan had this ability

to walk you through what was happening before it actually started to happen right you know and jujitsu as a sport and as a martial art completely took off, and everybody started training in it. Would you consider Joe Rogan to be the Howard Cosell of the UFC? 100%. I mean, he's better than Howard Cosell. Howard Cosell never actually trained in it, and could speak about it with the love and passion that Rogan does.

Did you understand what you were buying? Did you understand that the UFC, we're taking a lot of different disciplines. We're taking karate. We're taking Muay Thai. We're taking street fighters. We're taking boxers. We're taking whatever the case may be. Did you understand what you were actually buying when you purchased the UFC?

We did because we were in love with the sport. You know what I mean? buying when you purchased the UFC? We did because we were in love with the sport. Okay. You know what I mean? This wasn't just like, if this was an investment, you probably wouldn't have done it. Right. This was, we loved it. Right. We were literally obsessed with it.

We started taking jujitsu with John Lewis and we were doing, you know, three, four classes a week, private, in our offices at the time, and we loved it. When we saw, we said, man, imagine if they did this, imagine if they did that. This could be big. We truly believed in it. Did you take the jiu-jitsu classes to better understand that or to see how it would translate in the UFC?

No, we took the jiu-jitsu just to do it. Okay. And then once we did it, we became obsessed with it. Then once John started bringing some of the other guys in, and we started to meet these guys, we're like, boxing had the same story. I came from the mean streets of such and such. Yeah, absolutely.

If it wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail. Right. That was everybody's story. Correct. That wasn't for boxing, I'd be dead or in jail. That was everybody's story. That wasn't the story with the UFC. To be involved in martial arts, you grew up in a household that had money. Martial arts is expensive to go take these classes. And the other base for UFC was wrestling. So most of these kids had college educations, and they wrestled at some college. So it was completely different.

You had Matt Hughes, who was this farm boy from the Midwest. You had Chuck Liddell, who looked like an axe murderer, but actually graduated with a degree in accounting from Cal Poly and the list goes on and on of all these unique individuals. And the style of fighting was much more exciting than boxing because you could punch, kick, knee, elbow, slam to the ground, do some jump on top of it. A hundred percent. There's just so many different ways to win and lose. It made, it was a much more exciting fighting style. So how did you, how did you learn to negotiate these tv deals because you're bringing a product that i mean it went away for a little while and you you you you know you retooled it and so how do you go into a spike tv how do you go into a fox and says okay this is the product that i have

and this is what i think it should be worth how do you how do you do that dana well think about this when you ask me about how did you know how to manage? How did you know how? When we bought the UFC in, I think it was three weeks, we had our first event. Me and the Fertitta brothers had never done... Put on an event. Ever. Logistically for the live event, forget about TV and lighting and cameras and all this shit. We had to learn. We had to dive in and we had to figure. But here's what we did know. We knew what we wanted. We knew all the things that we loved about boxing and all the things that we hated about boxing. Because at the end of the day, we were fight geeks.

We loved fighting. So we knew what we wanted. Then it was just a matter of getting in there and fine-tuning. You know, believe me, I went through. There was a day, we had these guys that worked for us at the time in production. And we had a fighter who flipped out in one of the interviews and I loved it.

I said, this is going to be incredible for this fight. We're doing this, this, this. So I worked with the production team. The production team said, no, we don't like this. We shouldn't do this. I said, well, I don't give a shit what you think. This is what we're going to do. do okay so we're sitting there the night of the fight and i told lorenzo watch this interview the interview happens it's not what

i told them to do oh my goodness yeah i literally got up from my seat went back and kicked the door of the truck in and went in there and said if you motherfuckers ever do this again i'll fire every one of you so i ended up firing that whole crew anyway these are the kind of things we went through you know in the early years to build it into what it is today um but it's all trial and error but on the business side you know how much i learned from the fortitas on the business side wow not just them. I go in and sit down and talk to their father for hours about things. And, you know, so coming through all of this was my college. Right. The best way to learn is to dive in and do it. That's how you learn this type of stuff.

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I've walked away from many deals, many deals recently too. You know, how do you, how do you know the right time to walk away, Dana? Um, it's just a gut. It's a gut feeling, you know, if something's right for you, or it's not right for you. And you don't jump at the first opportunity. Take your time, you pump the brakes, you shop around and see what's out there and what what's possible. But lately, I mean, I've talked about this, this recently, too. I'm at a place in my life and in my career. I'm not doing anything for money anymore. I want to be in relationships that I'm comfortable with. I want to be in relationships with people that I'm aligned with and that we have the same beliefs, philosophies, and whatever it might be, especially in this culture and in this nutty world we're living in right now. So everything you've done with Dana White is about a partnership. It's not so much about getting a check. We're in business together. 100%.

100% and we're aligned. And you're not going to be calling this office 12 times a fucking year bitching about shit. an act yeah that that because they they spent some money with you they can tell you how to run your business live your life how to vote how to do this you ain't going for that you got the wrong guy you got the wrong guy i read what you pay is it true because i read this and i don't know i love having people that that can answer the questions for me that you paid spike tv to put on the Ultimate Fight. You paid them? Yeah, so the first meeting that we had with Spike, listen,

we're looking at all these different options out there. Spike TV pops up. It's the network for men. Could there be a better fit for us in the UFC at the time for a reality show? So the guys came in and they met with us. And I remember that day they were going to a Dodger game. They could not get out of this fucking meeting fast enough to go see the Dodger game. And we pitched the ultimate fighter to them and they didn't love it. all. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news, previews, recaps, and analysis delivered

straight to your podcast feed by the time you get your coffee. No dumb hot takes here, just smart hot takes. We'll talk every single game every single week, but I can't do it alone, so I'm bringing in the big guns from NFL media. That's Patrick Claiborne, Steve Weiss, Nick Shook, Jordan Rodrigue from The Athletic, and of course, Colleen Wolfe. This is their window right now. This is their Super Bowl window. Why would they trade him away? Because he would be a pivotal part of them winning that Super Bowl.

I don't know why, Colleen. Catch the podcast, the NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal every day. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. And who doesn't want that? Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So they end up leaving that day.

You know, the Fertittas and I get back together and the Fertittas say, you know what we'll do? We'll put up the money for this first season, which was $10 million. wow and uh this will be our last investment in the ufc if this doesn't work we're done yeah so we reach out to spike tv we tell them we're gonna put up the 10 million bucks they love that idea so we finance the first season of the ultimate fighter and the ultimate fighter is a smash hit right and then the finale happens and forrest and stephen bonner put on that unbelievable

fight the ratings go through the roof that night i was like i don't care if we end up with spike or not i know we got something here and we're gonna end up somewhere the spike tv executives take us out into the alley in the back of the arena we literally did the next tv deal you know the outline for it on a napkin wow in the alley at the arena but is it true that wwe could have asked the deal because you followed them on monday night yeah and i will give spike tv and their executives all the credit in the world for that they literally once we got in there uh they they put us behind the w coming out of the wwe which was a brilliant move right and that was that was all spike tv they did that but how do you i'm just trying to figure out

because obviously when people see you do something you have success obviously you're going to have competitors they're like okay maybe we're not going to be as big but if we can take 10 15 out of the ufc how have you been able to not only build from where you came from but continuously grow well we we uh once this thing took off and started to to grow um my philosophy was always this. The old UFC and a lot of other events that you'll see, all they really cared about was focusing on the television product, which is very important. But what about the live event? Because the people who show up for the live event actually spend more money.

Most of them fly there. They have to get hotel rooms. most of them fly there they have to get hotel rooms they buy the tickets they have to they buy gear 100 t-shirts uh you know program goes on and on i always want to make sure that the live event is better than anything you've ever seen and most people will tell you when you come come to a UFC live event, it is the best sporting event you will ever see live. It's actually better than what you see on TV, and the TV product is incredible. So all I ever focus on every day when I come to this office is

finding and building new up-and-coming talent, putting on the best fights that we can possibly put on, and then it's live television production and live in-house production. If I focus on those things every day, you can't mess this up. You can't mess it up. It's impossible. But it has to be because you are a very, very energetic person. And in the beginning, this had to wear you down.

The average person, when you're not having the success out the gate that you thought you were going to have, how are you able to remain so positive? Nothing wears me down. Yes. If things wore me down, I'd be sitting in fucking San Diego right now. I'm doing God knows what. Because believe me, getting here right now today, nothing wears me down. I feed off that kind of shit. I love it.

I love adversity. I love people saying, this can't be done. That's my favorite thing in life. Tell me this can't be done. And I'm going to show you it can. 100%. Is it true that Joe Rogan, he worked the first 12, 13 shows for free to show you that he could do it? No, he didn't do it to show.

I actually reached out to him. Ivory Keenan Wayans used to have a talk show. Keenan Ivory. When we bought the UFC, they were based in New York. So I had to fly out to New York, go through their offices myself, figure out what I was going to ship to Vegas that we needed and throw away what we didn't. Okay. So I'm, they had tapes piled up to the roof. So I'm in there with a VHS popping all these tapes and seeing what was what.

And I pop in a tape and it's the Keenan Ivers Wayans show. And he's got Joe Rogan, who was the fear factor guy. Yes. And he starts talking about his love for MMA. And it was brilliant. The interview was brilliant. And I'm like, this is the guy I need. This is the guy that could be the, you know, um, I didn't know what, how he fit in, but I was going to figure it out. I ended up reaching out to Rogan and, uh, he's awesome. We hit it off. And he says, wait a minute.

So you're telling me that I can have the best seats in the house for every UFC event and talk about the UFC? He's like, I'll do that for free. So Rogan comes out. He does the first 12 events for free. Wow. We buy him a really nice watch to say thank you, whatever. Rogan could give a shit about a watch now that we really know rogan yeah but that's what started the relationship and and yeah it just you know i would do anything for joe rogan and we haven't you know we're tight

would you consider him, even with fighters, probably one of the two or three best investments that UFC made that you made? A hundred percent. Joe Rogan was one of the best moves that I made early on in building this company. There were a few key people that I brought in that I believe helped get us to where we are today. And Joe Rogan is absolutely positively one of those people and joe rogan will go down in history as one of the greatest combat sports uh play-by-play guys or color guys whatever you want to call them ever let's talk about some of your fighters let's start with conor mcgregor grew up obviously at one point in time he was

getting government assistance turns himself into the great fighter he's a champion in two different weight classes he fights floyd makes a ton of money and we're going to get to this how and why you signed off on that deal do you think connor can ever be what he once was having accumulated the wealth because it's hard and you you i can appreciate brady i can appreciate guys that make millions hundreds of million and still go and act as if they're broke did you think that 100 million changed connor does he still have the desire to go train and punch people in the face and get kicked in the face like he did when he was broke it's impossible for that money not to affect you and phase you um and and you see it that that that is and you're so dead on one of the things that makes brady so incredible and and and

unique is that not only not only did he every year strive to get better and better, he was never one of these guys that tried to break the bank and be the highest paid guy. He would actually take less money to build a better team. 100%. I mean, it's one of the things that now he's looked at as the GOAT and that guy will continue to print money for the rest of his life. Absolutely.

to print money for the rest of his life. Absolutely. And to be a young guy and not let his ego get in the way of being great and chasing greatness and understanding that not one person does anything. You need a team around you. And that is one of the things that I will credit Connor for too.

If you ever notice there's never been animosity or a beef between ufc and connor mcgregor right connor mcgregor is brilliant in that way too he knows what he brought to the table and he knows his value and his worth but he also knows that the ufc is you know what I mean much like Brady the thing in fighting the hard part about in the combat sports world is once you start to make that kind of money and you want to say well it never changed me it's impossible not to change it's impossible to go from you know where you were to where you are today financially and not be changed but connor's one of the very unique few that was able to capitalize on his fame his personality

and everything else outside of the octagon. And this is all professional sports. I mean, you played at the highest level. To stay on top of your game for many, many years is very hard to do, especially once money becomes involved. Well, it's hard in this sport because you can't duck and dodge. You can't... and dodge you can't you're absolutely right you have a team around you that where you might slack a little bit other people can pick up right and carry you you can't get carried in this right

see and see when i look at connor and you look at what he has is craft irish whiskey and i think he has a beard now he goes from wearing sandals to have mink slippers. He goes from living in a very meager house to living in an ivory tower. And he hadn't fought, I'm looking at his last, I mean, his last fought, January 2020. What do you expect when he steps back into the ring? He's at a place in his life and in his career that, you know, he shows up every once in a while but when he does

it's fun you know it's gonna be electric people give a shit yeah people want to see it and you know you you can't expect to always be you know the the best in the world it's hard to do and and you got to give it i'll give you an example people talk shit and say whatever they want to say but look at canelo canelo is still the man yes you know he's been for a long long time and he jumps in there and he does it and he goes to work and it's hard to stay at that level for a very long time and canelo's another guy i mean what's this guy clipping 40 mil a fight easy like that you know what i mean not including what he's making outside of the ring. So a very unique feud can do it. How much do you think,

because I do think he's a very talented and gifted fighter, but how much is it his ability to sell a fight? His gift to Gab is nothing like we've ever seen in the UFC. You have to go back to an Ali, somebody that can talk, that get you riled up. I got to watch this guy fight. Either he going to whip somebody or I want somebody to whip him, but I got to see it. I always hate to do this, but it's a fact.

Conor and Ali are here. They're equal. When you talk about mental warfare and the ability to get in a guy's head and the ability to talk up a fight. He's Ali level. He really is. And it's fun, man. Connor, it's fun having Connor in this company and in this sport in general.

So I don't know what you asked me. What did you ask me? How has the $100 million fight, to your best guess. Well, it's not just the $100 million fight. It's everything that came along. I mean, as far as I've heard, too, in the movie business, he just did a movie. He was the highest paid guy to ever walk into a movie for the first time. You know, his liquor business. Craft Irish, yeah.

You and I hope we can do what he did absolutely business and the list goes on and on and on and what this kid has achieved and continues to achieve so um fighting got him into a position where he could capitalize on all these different things outside of fighting and and very few i'm trying to think of who else has been able to do that everybody else has had to make all their money in fighting you know maybe they had a couple things go on here and there nobody has done it outside of the octagon or ring at the level that conor mcgregor has you're absolutely right ring is in full bloom are your your finances blooming too? With the Chime Secure Credit Builder Visa Credit Card, it's easy to start building credit with everyday purchases on

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It's going to be in the sphere, right? No, 303 is Conor McGregor International Fight Week. Okay, okay. The sphere is in September. Dana, how do you go about choosing where fights will take place? So, normally, what we'll do is we'll look at a date, a fight, what's available, where we haven't been in a long time. This whole sphere thing goes back to Tom Brady. Tom Brady called me and said, want to go see you two together? They're playing at the sphere.

I said, yeah, I'm in. We go to the sphere. I'm sitting in the sphere and I'm looking around at how amazing this place is and the technology and everything and i'm like i have to do this i literally when when we left i got on the phone and i called my head of production craig borsari and i said you're going to you too next weekend get the team together whoever you want to bring and you're going to go watch this concert we're doing the sphere wow so why why would i do this to myself right it's like this is the kind of things that i love to do i love to be first okay i love to push the limits right i love to do things that people think aren't possible because everybody's like how could you pull off a sporting event in the

sphere it doesn't even make sense well watch it in september i'm gonna show you how you do it right so um we're deep into this thing now at the time i've been with mgm forever yes well i don't have the right to go to the sphere they fucked me okay they fucked me mgmd yeah and basically they knew that i had this whole thing that I was doing. I just built a performance institute in Mexico. Right. I'm doing Mexican Independence Day. And hats off to Al Heyman. We do the event. MGM got fucked by boxing somehow.

Right. I don't know the deal or how it went down, but they got fucked. Okay. So I end up getting Mexican Independence Day. Okay. I go in, put on a great event. Al Heyman, I call my guy Monday and said,

make sure we got this locked up next year too. That weekend, Al Heyman slides in and steals the date from me next year well hats off to you um my guy calls on monday and they said yo we already gave it to al hayman i flipped the fuck out flipped out because you do all your fights at the mgm grade for 20 something years yes but but these guys say, we're sorry. How can we fix it? I said, give me the sphere.

I want the sphere. I want the sphere. So MGM gives me the date of the sphere, lets me go to the sphere to do this thing. Wow. Right? So the way that this thing played out is crazy. This was meant to happen. So September is going to be, first of all, I'm a big boxing fan, and I've always been a fan of Mexican fighters.

Yeah. And, you know, some of the baddest dudes to ever walk the face of this earth have been Mexicans. When somebody tells you you fight like a Mexican, it is the biggest compliment you could ever get in the fight business, right? It is the biggest compliment you could ever get in the fight business, right? And this is my love letter to Mexico, the Mexican people, and the history of combat in Mexico. And it's going to be done in the greatest arena ever built with the best technology in the world right now as far as arena goes. And I'm already $ million dollars into this thing this will never be done again this will never be replicated anybody who comes in after me at the sphere is fucked telling you right now so this this is going to be a one-off the ufc will never

go back to the sphere this is a one of one one of one one and done and it will be the greatest live sporting event anybody has ever seen have you and if you're mexican you have to be there you have to be there have you have you already got a card in mind we're we're working on it and we're tweaking it every day and yeah the answer is yes. Ooh. Oh, man. I can just imagine who... Everybody wants to be on that card. Everybody should want to be on that card. Believe me when I tell you.

Everybody was all fired up about UFC 300. This thing is going to be, you know... And again, if you are Mexican and you are on this... It's going to be like nothing anybody's ever seen before for a live event. I had Francis and God. Not to mention the fact when I talk about always being first, nothing has ever been done live at the Sphere. Broadcast. Nothing's ever been broadcast live out of the Sphere.

So everything that I'm doing there, putting on a fight. Right. Right. Programming the sphere. Beaming it live to the rest of the world. Right. These are all firsts. Nobody's ever done this before.

How many, what's the capacity of the sphere? So 20,000. Wow. Yeah. There'll be 20,000 people in there that day. Wow. There's not a bad seat in the house, is it? Well, it's different.

It's unique. To say there's not a bad seat in the house for the fight, this isn't just a fight. This is a live theatrical event. Yeah. Yeah. You're excited about this? I'm beyond excited about this. So had you not gone, that obviously the youtube was the first

to perform in there had you not gone had that thought ever crossed your mind prior to you going to see youtube in the sphere all these things that happen brady calling me and asked me if i want to go to youtube with him i wouldn't have gone and i wouldn't i wouldn't have seen it it um the uh the thing that happened with mgm al hayman sliding in there and stealing my date all the things that have aligned for me to be at the sphere it was meant to be it was meant to be this was supposed to happen yeah and you glad say thank you al i appreciate that exactly i ain't hating on him listen al is a is a is a sharp, sharp dude. Yep. This concludes the first half of my conversation. Part two is also posted and you can access it to whichever podcast platform you just listen to part one on.

Just simply go back to Club Che Che profile and I'll see you there. Wake up with football every morning and listen to my new podcast, NFL Daily with Greg Rosenthal. Five days a week, you'll get all the latest news and the best analysis delivered by the time you get your coffee. The show hits every single game every single week, but I can't do it alone. So I'm bringing in all the big guns from NFL media like Colleen Wolf. Subscribe today and you'll immediately be smarter and funnier than your friends. Listen now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.